Ghosts & Scholars 41

 

The latest issue of the long-running M R James journal Ghosts & Scholars, founded by Rosemary Pardoe, has just been published. No 41 has been guest-edited by John Howard.

It includes: Jim Bryant on MRJ’s cycling holidays in Denmark; Duncan J Rule on MRJ’s role in preserving the scene of Thomas Gray's 'Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard'; Carl Lavoie on R H Malden, author of Nine Ghosts; new Jamesian fiction by Gail-Nina Anderson, Victoria Day and Sam Derby; and atmospheric artwork by Jim Pitts.

There’s also the regular columns from Rosemary Pardoe and Rick Kennett, Jamesian notes and queries, news and book reviews.

Accompanying this issue is The Life of St Cubby by Darroll Pardoe, a chapbook collecting the author’s vignettes of a strangely obscure Celtic hermit.

Update: out of print. 

(Mark Valentine)

Strange Stories and The Badminton Magazine

I first encountered The Badminton Magazine some years ago, when I was going to review a small book for my column, "Late Reviews." The book was The Haunted Hunt, a limited edition of 500 copies from 1965. The introduction by the 4th Viscount Knutsford noted that he had come across this story about fifty years earlier in The Badminton Magazine. So I went looking for the magazine, and found the story in January 1907 issue.  It's an interesting short tale about an obsessive fox-hunter who returns from the dead to hunt his prey.  But the most interesting thing about the story, as it appeared in The Badminton Magazine, is that it was part of a long series of "Strange Stories of Sport." 

So when I heard that Chris Harte's next project, after his index of The Captain (see an earlier Wormwoodiana post here), would be a study of The Badminton Magazine, I wanted to learn more.  Now he has produced two books. The first is The Badminton Magazine of Sports & Pastimes 1895-1923: A History, Index and Bibliography (Sports History Publishing, 2021), ISBN 9781898010142 £19.95. It is in the same format of The Captain book--that is, an oversized book, with lots of photographs of authors and the contents indexed in various ways. It's a fine study of forgotten periodical. 

But the real gem, for readers of Wormwoodiana, is the second, associated book: Strange Stories of Sport, edited by Chris Harte (Sports History Publications, 2021), ISBN 9781898010159  £12.95. It collects all forty-six stories in the series from The Badminton Magazine. The series ran from March 1905 through March 1909. Twenty-one writers contributed the tales--eleven were by Frank Savile (1865-1950), a prolific writer of short stories. A handful of other authors (including the magazine's editor, Alfred Watson) contributed multiple stories. Most are unfamiliar names today, which is not a bad thing.

The stories are from off the beaten path--that is, they are almost all unfamiliar, so there is a freshness to the tales because none have shown up in various anthologies. "The Haunted Hunt" (by "Ralph John" i.e., Ralph John Richardson), number 23 of the series, is the only tale that had been reprinted before.So if you're looking for unfamiliar eccletic stories, "strange" if not always supernatural, you'll want to get this book now. I am thoroughly enjoying it.

 

 

  

A Chronology of Writers in the M R James Tradition

Thirty years ago this year, Rosemary Pardoe published The James Gang – A Bibliography of Writers in the M.R. James Tradition (1991). This provided a checklist of books and stories following in the antiquarian ghost story form perfected by James, as well as those (not necessarily in that style) by his circle of friends. Hugh Lamb, who had drawn up a “James List” for his own use in 1973, provided an introduction.

This soon became an invaluable reference source for any enthusiast repining that James’ stories are all very well, but there just aren’t enough of them. Rosemary has said she would like to see the list updated with similar work published since her list—but is not volunteering to do it! There would certainly be a lot more to list, not least because of Rosemary’s own work with the Ghosts & Scholars journals and anthologies.

The James Gang is organised alphabetically by author surname, but I thought it would also be interesting to arrange the main items (not all of them) chronologically, to get a sense of how the Jamesian story developed. I have here focused on books, or groups of stories, rather than individual stories, though these are included in the original booklet. I have added a very few new entries.

To begin with, a reminder that the original books by M R James are: Ghost Stories of An Antiquary (1904), More Ghost Stories of An Antiquary (1911), A Thin Ghost and Others (1919); A Warning to the Curious and Others (1925), and The Collected Ghost Stories of M R James (1931), which assembled the first four books and a few other tales.

Note: I have omitted books by the Benson brothers (A C, E F, R H), Walter de la Mare, Robert Aickman and Ramsey Campbell as they each have their own distinctive voice.

Chronology

1910 The Footprints in the Snow by H F W Tatham, a cycling companion of MRJ

1911-14 – Seven stories published in the Magdalene College Magazine, Cambridge, by ‘B’, identity unknown.

1911 and 1920 – two stories in the Cambridge Review, by ‘D.N.J.’, unidentified

1912 The Stoneground Ghost Tales by E G Swain, a friend of MRJ

1914 The Hole of the Pit by Arthur Reed Ropes, novel; dedicated to MRJ

1918 A College Mystery: the story of the apparition in the Fellows' Garden at Christ's College Cambridge by A P Baker

1919 Tedious Brief Tales of Granta and Gramarye, by ‘Ingulphus’ (Arthur A Gray, Master of Jesus College, Cambridge)

1919 Six Ghost Stories by T G Jackson, acknowledges MRJ in introduction

 

1922 In Ghostly Company by Amyas Northcote

1923 Mystic Voices by Roger Pater

1928 They Return At Evening by H Russell Wakefield

1928 Randall’s Round by Eleanor Scott

1929 Old Man’s Beard by H Russell Wakefield

1931 Imagine A Man in a Box by H Russell Wakefield

1933 By Stygian Waters by J.Cecil Maby, dedicated to MRJ and Poe

1936 The Horror of Abbot’s Grange by Frederick Cowles

1938 The Night Wind Howls by Frederick Cowles

 

1943 Nine Ghosts by R H Malden, Dean of Wells Cathedral

1944 The Case of the Gilded Fly by Edmund Crispin. Crime novel with a Jamesian ghost story in one chapter.

1945 A Handful of Ghosts by George Bushnell

1947 Not Exactly Ghosts by Andrew Caldecott

1947 Unholy Relics by M P Dare

1948 Fires Burn Blue by Andrew Caldecott

1948 Sleep No More by L T C Rolt

1949 The Alabaster Hand by A N L Munby

1950 The Black Fox by H F Heard, novel

1952  A Pad in the Straw by Christopher Woodforde, a later Dean of Wells

1953 The Sweet Singers by William Croft Dickinson

1954 Yesterday Knocks by Noel Boston

1955 My Bones and My Flute by Edgar Mittelholzer

 

1969 The Green Man by Kingsley Amis, novel

1970 The House on the Brink by John Gordon, young adult novel

1974-76 four stories in anthologies by A.Erskine Ellis, who met MRJ at college

1977 Our Lady of Darkness by Fritz Leiber, novel

1978 et seq stories by Sheila Hodgson in Blackwood’s Magazine, then Ghosts & Scholars, featuring MRJ

1979 The Seven Deadly Sins by Lanyon Jones

1980 et seq Eye Hath Not Seen and other books and chapbooks by David Rowlands

1982 High Spirits by Robertson Davies

1983 A Natural Body and A Spiritual Body by J S Leatherbarrow

1985 Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd, novel

1985 A Graven Image by Roger Johnson, chapbook

1985 When Dusk Comes Creeping by Lanyon Jones

1985 et seq Change & Decay and other books and chapbooks by A F Kidd

1986 The Angry Dead by Mary Ann Allen (Rosemary Pardoe), chapbook

1986 et seq An Empty House and other books and chapbooks by Ron Weighell

1987 Ghosts & Scholars ed Richard Dalby and Rosemary Pardoe, indispensable anthology

1989 Antique Dust by Robert Westall

 

I think the chronology does illustrate a sort of sequence. In the first phase, there is a strong MRJ or Cambridge connection. In the 1920s and 30s a few new authors try their hand: in the 40s the publisher Edward Arnold brings out some conscious pastiches; from the 60s and 70s there are variations very much of their own time, but still nodding to MRJ; in the 80s and after small and independent presses resume the original tradition.

(Mark Valentine)